Cannabis Now: Cannabis on Campus – Why Does Marijuana Legalization End in College?

It’s mid-September, and across the country, college football season is in full swing. Students at many universities have been back at school for almost a month, and hovering over other idyllic campus quads is the unmistakable smell of marijuana. It smells different this year, with cannabis legal in states where more than 65 million Americans live, but it shouldn’t — at most schools, marijuana still smells like a cause for removal from housing and dismissal from school, just as it always has.

Numerous major college campuses have banned cannabis possession — even in states where recreational marijuana is legal for adults. These include all campuses of the University of California, including its flagship Berkeley campus, the University of Washington and the University of Oregon. “You may possess and use recreational marijuana only if you are 21 and older,” the U of O student handbook warns. “Just not on campus.”

At the private University of Southern California, one of Berkeley’s main rivals, cannabis smoking is prohibited, though that hasn’t stopped the student newspaper from publishing a list of the best places to smoke weed on campus (they ultimately suggest smoking off campus, as it’s against the rules to even possess cannabis at USC).

Without exception, universities whose policies were examined by Cannabis Now made no distinction between medical and recreational cannabis, and as such, their bans included medical marijuana as well as recreational. This poses a real conundrum for college students who need to use cannabis medicinally, including sufferers of Crohn’s disease and intractable seizures as well as anyone with chronic pain or PTSD. Are you a military veteran and would you like to take advantage of your GI Bill benefits? Great, but figure out a way to keep the night terrors away that isn’t cannabis.